Amazon is finally preparing to start flights of its air drone delivery service in the US by bringing it to a small town in California.
Prime Air drone deliveries will debut in Lockeford, California, later this year, Amazon says. But starting today, Amazon is reaching out to customers in the town to provide them with the option to receive free, drone-based deliveries on thousands of items.
Amazon is describing the launch in Lockeford, which is home to 3,500 people, as a bit of testing ground for the service. Residents will be able to give the company feedback on the drone deliveries, which Amazon will use to help scale out the system across the US.
The drones are designed for faster delivery over the company’s existing same-day shipments. According to Amazon, each bot can ship an item up weighing up to 5 pounds in less than an hour via drones that can fly up to 50 miles per hour at an altitude reaching 400 feet.
“Once onboarded, customers will see Prime Air-eligible items on Amazon. They will place an order as they normally would and receive an estimated arrival time with a status tracker for their order,” the company said.
The drones will then fly to the customer’s home, descend, and drop items in the backyard. Once the delivery is done, the drone will then rise back into the air and return to Amazon’s facilities.
Amazon said the residents in Lockeford, California, “will be among the first to receive Prime Air drone deliveries in the US.” So you can expect the drone delivery option to arrive in more areas in the country soon.
Walmart is also expanding its drone deliveries in the US. However, Amazon's system relies more on automation while Walmart is tapping remote pilots to fly their drones. Amazon added: “We’ve created a sophisticated and industry-leading sense-and-avoid system that will enable operations without visual observers and allow our drone to operate at greater distances while safely and reliably avoiding other aircraft, people, pets, and obstacles."
Over the last nine years, the company has also tested more than dozen drone prototypes. The latest design, which will be making the deliveries in Lockeford, has six propellers that have been developed to minimize high-frequency soundwaves.